OPEN UP THE DRUG COURT

One of the hallmarks of a free society is open courts. We conduct court
sessions in public so that citizens can scrutinize justice; such scrutiny
reduces opportunities for political favoritism or rank injustice through
abuse of power. No one should be sent off to prison after secret court
proceedings. That is why it is alarming that Rhode Island, apparently alone
of all the states, has chosen to operate its drug court under an absolute
cloak of secrecy.

When the Journal tried to report what was happening in the public's drug
court, it ran into a stone wall. The court calendar was not available to
the public, and court personnel and participants were forbidden to talk
about their cases. Moreover, once the court accepted a case, the case file
was closed to the public.

The reason given was a provision of federal law forbidding the disclosure
of confidential medical information about drug-abuse patients. Under the
logic applied by Joseph Rodgers, the presiding justice of Rhode Island
Superior Court, that means the drug court must be kept under wraps, since
defendants are routinely referred to drug-treatment programs, a form of
medical care.

The Journal has long ethusiastically supported the drug-court concept. Drug
courts are a way of getting nonviolent offenders into treatment instead of
jail, which can save taxpayers much money -- and rescue people from
addiction. But that does not mean that citizens who opt to go through these
courts should be accorded absolute secrecy.

Justice Rodgers ought to rethink this one.

For one thing, defendants are referred to treatment quite frequently in
open court. And during criminal trials, medical records are entered as
evidence. That drug courts alone must be secret defies logic. Moreover, in
other states where judges have been worried about the medical-secrecy
issue, they have gotten around it by requiring defendants to sign a
disclosure form if they wished to go the drug-court route. And a drug court
always could order a citizen to jail if he or she failed to live up to his
or her agreement. Clearly, citizens should not be deprived of their liberty
in secret proceedings.

The Rhode Island chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union has called
on Judge Rodgers to reconsider his order, noting that confidentiality
restrictions "should not form the foundation for a completely secret court
system."

They should not. In little Rhode Island, secrecy has too often been a cover
for corruption and favoritism. Our judicial leaders should do all they can
to maintain openness and a reputation for fair and equal justice.